Project Green: August

We're going green, but change takes time!  The Hubs and I are challenging ourselves to make our household and lifestyle more environmentally friendly by taking on one green project each month.  In June, I made my own laundry detergent.  In July, we started composting.  Here's what we did in August:

Okay, so I slacked off a little in August and now I owe the blogosphere two green projects.  I assure you, I have not been shirking my environmental responsibilities - it's only writing about it that is falling by the wayside.

This summer, we ate a lot of sockeye salmon.  Everyone knows that salmon is a great source of omega-3, along with other important vitamins and minerals, and helps fight cancer, reduce the risk of obesity, and promote a healthy heart.  And it makes you smart. At least, it will probably make Lilah smart (or, I should say, smarter, if that's even possible) - it's probably too late for me and the Hubs!

Great, so what does eating salmon have to do with being friendly to the earth?  Well, we bought a quarter share in our local community supported fishery, which is recommended by the Vancouver Aquarium as Ocean Wise, meaning that the fishing is done in as sustainable a manner as possible.  So we can bite into our delicious salmon dinner knowing that we are doing our small part to help preserve the health of our oceans.  I wanted to tell you how it works, but Skipper Otto (or at least his website) says it best, so here's a direct quote:

A “Community Supported Fishery” is inspired by the very successful model of “Community Supported Agriculture” (CSA) which seeks to link consumers to family businesses that produce local, organic, sustainable, fairly traded food. In a CSF, as in a CSA, consumers purchase a share in the business. They share in the benefits and joys of the fishery as well as the risks. In exchange, the consumer receives a share of the best of what is produced that year. As with CSAs, CSFs help ensure that independent, small scale harvesters remain in an industry which is rapidly becoming dominated by big business and aquaculture.



By investing a sum at the start of the season, customers guarantee that we have enough money to operate our fishing business for the season. In exchange, customers will receive a bounty of wild, fresh, northern salmon.

So, we were already feeling pretty smug about our salmon consumption.  And then, and then! this year turned out to be a mammoth year for salmon runs.  So much so that Skipper Otto hosted a barbecue in August with a free fish for all the CSF members who showed up.  Ours was so big we had to invite our neighbours over to help us eat it!  If you'll believe it, I think it tasted even better when it was free!

Stay tuned for September's project coming tomorrow...